Online stores and ecommerce websites are strategically important and lucrative channels for selling goods and services to consumers. Initially viewed with skepticism, consumer confidence in and adoption of electronic shopping systems has and continues to be vigorous. The U.S. Commerce Department reported recently that 2012 ecommerce sales totaled $225 billion, up from $194.7 billion in 2011. The trend is expected to continue. Analysts are forecasting compounded annual growth rates at greater than 10% over the next five years.
As expected with the expansion of the ecommerce retail segment, gaining and defending market share therein is increasingly challenged by an ever intensifying competitive landscape, where clearly, it is not enough to simply have an active ecommerce presence or website. Innovation is key—and for the attentive mass retailer—an important customer expectation to be ministered responsibly.
Along these lines, in examining areas for improvement in ecommerce website design, the electronic checkout process and use therein of virtual shopping carts has received considerable interest. In particular, it was observed that the shopping cart technology implemented in several existing ecommerce websites can have in certain settings a restrictive effect on online retail activity.
In particular, under the conventional paradigm, a customer is provided with a single virtual shopping cart that is programmed to essentially follow a linear path from “loading” to “checkout”. When the path is completed, either by cancellation or by checkout, the cart is “emptied”, and only then, readied for reuse for a different order.
On some websites, the customer can indeed stop the cart midway and save it, rather than cancel it. A new or different order nonetheless cannot be placed until the saved cart is checked out, cancelled, or otherwise emptied of the items contained therein belonging to the older order.
While single cart technology can continue to effectively serve customers that shop intermittently or episodically, the process can be cumbersome for customers having frequent purchasing needs that either recur over time or differ contextually. For such customers, every time a need arises to reorder an identical or substantially similar set of items, the customer has to repeat the often monotonous process of finding the items again; adding them to the cart; making sure for each item that the quantity, description, and other pertinent item parameters are correct; reviewing the order's delivery and payment settings; and then submitting the order for checkout. Over time, tedious as this routine may become, since no other reasonable alternatives are currently provided, these customers simply continue to absorb the burden.
In short, despite a substantial need and commercial opportunity, there are no known ecommerce systems that allow customers to define, refine, reuse, and automate multiple item orders at or prior to checkout.